Hearts and Minds Collection
by AngelofPrey
Summary: A collection of drabbles/ficlets. Mostly to be used for Rose/Doctor stuff. Essentially any idea I have stuck in my head that makes it to paper before disappearing. Suggestions welcome! Oh come on, just give it a shot!
1. Disclaimer

DISCLAIMER~DISCLAIMER~DISCLAIMER~ DISCLAIMER~DISCLAIMER~DISCLAIMER~ DISCLAIMER~

I DO NOT OWN DOCTOR WHO, OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS/STORYLINES/ANYTHING.

I DO NOT OWN ANY SONG I MAY USE FOR A TITLE/INTRODUCTION/BOTH.

I DO NOT OWN THE BBC… IT OWNS ME…

Reviews are love, please review.

If you have any suggestions feel free to send me a message or put it in a review. I may or may not get around to doing it because of my busy schedule but I'll do my best!

Love and monsters,

Angel_of_Prey 3


	2. Chapter 1: The Satan Pit: Falling

"If you get back in touch… if you talk to Rose…"

This was another one of his beliefs.

Unlike the belief that nothing could have ever come from before the universe this belief (well, superstition might be a better word) stemmed from fear, irrational, icky, human fear. This fear was that if he dared to say those three terrible, wonderful words aloud to anybody that she would be ripped away from him. So maybe if he just didn't say it then maybe, just maybe he could hold onto her for just a little while longer.

"Just tell her…"

To have a fantastic life? No, he had told her that already, and he remembered how well that plan had gone… If anything she would take that as a sign to come after him. Besides, how could she possibly have a fantastic life now? She was trapped in a time not her own on a planet that shouldn't exist… He had ruined any chance she'd ever had of having a fantastic life when he brought her here, probably sooner, but he wouldn't admit that to himself, he'd enjoyed her company too much to not be selfish about it. Point was, now her life was most definitely ruined, just like every other companion he'd ever had. Why with his superior Time Lord brain was he sometimes so stupid, especially regarding the humans he cares most for. So he tries again.

"Tell her I…"

The words die on his lips.

Tell her he loves her? He felt one of his hearts shudder in fear and the other soar at the thought of telling. These could be his last words, why not let it be something romantic?

'Because if I do make it out of this alive then I'll have said it aloud and the universe'll take her from me…' that irrational fear screamed back at him.

It's the right last words to give her, he can feel it, he knows that's the phrase he's frantically wrestling with, but he can't say it, he just can't, not yet…

He can feel Ida Scot's nervous energy even ten miles below her; she's thinking that she missed the end of the message.

Tell her I'm sorry?

It's too late for that.

He gathers his courage again to say it, but again that one piece of his mind saying "what if?" distracts him and he hears himself sigh.

"Oh, she knows…"

Finally, he unhooks the last clip and falls. The coward every time.

'I love you, Rose Tyler.' The love-sick aching half of his mind projects as far and as loudly as it can, but she's not a psychic being, so she'll never hear it. 'Goodbye.'

The last sound he hears before the silence of the place engulfs him is a crackle of the connection to the surface being made. "Doctor are you there? Doctor? Ida? Can you hear me?" Rose's voice calls out before he falls out of range of the transmitters.

Funny that, he was cut off from her in the end anyway.

He didn't regret the decision to fall, he couldn't, but he suddenly found himself craving a life with the one adventure he can never have. A life with a proper house, one with doors, carpets, and a mortgage, a mortgage shared with Rose Tyler. As scary and awkward as it had all seemed only hours ago, now it seemed so appealing. Funny thing certain death, what it'll do to a man.

His last thought before his survival instincts kick in and knock him into an unconscious state to cushion the fall was; "Damn, still haven't taken her to Barcelona..."


	3. Chapter 2: Clementines

Rose Tyler had an interesting way of eating clementines, the Doctor noted one day while catching their breath after having run for almost a solid half-hour from the Inquisition, which he'd conveniently landed them in the middle of one fine afternoon in renaissance Andalucía.

They were sitting on a rock under a scrubby tree and he had pulled the treat out from one of his pockets and Rose had snatched it from him a little greedily.

First thing she'd done was peel it, naturally. The Doctor watched as her well-groomed fingernails broke the surface and worked under the peel; she let the chunks of bright orange rind fall to the ground next to her foot carelessly. But that wasn't the odd thing.

Next she split the clementine in two and offered him a half, which he accepted, but didn't pay any attention to since he was so transfixed by her interesting methods of enjoying the fruit. Taking a section, and leaving the rest in her lap, she carefully and painstakingly removed every single string from the slice. It took her well over three minutes of full concentration before she finally deemed the piece worthy.

Then Rose raised the piece to her lips and bit down into the piece the horizontal way… careful not to let any of the sweetness run down her chin or worse, squirt her in the eye. She noticed him watching at this point and gave him a grin that looked incredibly goofy with a slice of the orange fruit staring at him from between her up-curved lips instead of teeth.

Her mouth and fingers worked together until she had bitten clean through the slice and there was a perfect crescent sitting between her thumb and index finger. It was then she realized he was still staring at her, his mouth slightly open, but he was definitely not gaping.

"What?" she asks after popping the rest of the slice in her mouth.

"Why are you doing that?" he replied genuinely confused, watching as she moved onto a second slice.

"Doing what?" she said innocently.

"Eating it that way!"

"S'how I always eat them." Rose stated sinking her teeth into the second slice she'd just finished cleaning.

"…but why?" The Doctor sputtered. "Why not just put them in your mouth and chew like everyone else?"

"I dunno, 'cause I always have done? I like doing it this way, never saw a reason to change it." She said again moving on to the next piece. She licks and sucks at her lips which are shining from the citrus juice, he can smell it on her and wonders absently whether or not the taste of Rose goes well with citrus, he reckons it does.

"Try it sometime, s' fun." She says indicating the half of clementine still nestled untouched in his palm.

The Doctor tries it, and squirts himself in the eye for his trouble.

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Much later, after being captured by the Inquisition and very nearly tortured, (in a set up very similar to Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum when he took a moment to think about it), and Rose was _very_ close to being shish kabob-ed in one of their iron maiden torture devices. 'Very' as in the door was being closed on her when the Doctor finally burst into the room heroically with a letter from the Pope telling the Inquisition to let them go.

After that, Rose and the Doctor made their way wearily back to the TARDIS and Rose yawned as he unlocked and held the door open for her. She shuffled up the ramp and sighed happily while gazing around the control room and letting the warm gold of the coral and the light green of the central column seep peace into her bones.

"Doctor," Rose began, "'m really sorry but I _have_ to go and take at least a quick kip in the library or something," she yawned again, "I know you hate to wait around for me while I sleep but I can't keep my eyes open. You go set us down on one of them asteroid bazaars, yeah? An' I'll come an' meet you when I'm up."

"No Rose, it's fine." The Doctor said, "You go and get some rest, I'll move us into the Vortex and then I'll do some repairs. Who knows, I might even turn in for a wink or two myself."

Rose was startled, the Doctor hardly ever let her go to bed without a fuss, complaining about how sleeping was a waste of time and that humans spent one-third of their already miniscule lifespan not even conscious, let alone suggest that he, the superior Time Lord in their complicated relationship, should ever sleep.

"You feelin' alright Doctor?" Rose asked, genuinely concerned. The only time she could ever remember seeing him sleep, really sleep was just after he'd regenerated. She took a few steps closer to him where he stood at the top of the ramp.

"I'm fine Rose. I'm always fine, you know that."

"But that's what you say whenever you're really not fine, yeah?"

The Doctor gave her a small smile. "I'm really fine this time though. You're safe, the TARDIS is in one piece, we're not in jail, and I'm not regenerating…"

"Listed in order of importance?" Rose said tilting her head to one side and with her tongue poking out through her teeth.

"Pardon?" The Doctor asked a little flustered. Rose giggled at his expression; she'd only said that to wind him up.

"Nothing Doctor." She said before giving him a hug and bidding him good night.

The Doctor watched Rose leave the console room for her own but shook himself and sighed when he heard her door shut.

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It was a few hours later when Rose woke with the distinct feeling that someone was watching her. Rose looked over her shoulder to the door to her room and blinked the sleep out of her eyes as the Doctor came into focus.

"Doctor?" she croaked, the throat was horrendously dry. "Wha's th' matter?"

"I didn't mean to wake you." He said at first.

"I—" He continued his mouth opening and closing a few times, he was beginning to take on a distinct resemblance to a fish in the less sane half of Rose's mind. "I—"

"What is it?" Rose was more fully awake now so she sat up to take whatever news the Doctor brought her.

"Rose, I—I'm sorry, I'm so very sorry." Her eyes had adjusted to the dim light following him in through the open door and she saw one of his more heartbroken, anguished looks staring back at her.

"Doctor? Really now, tell me what's wrong, you're scaring me…" She stood and walked over to him taking his hand in hers.

"You almost—I nearly… You were this close to--, and I couldn't do a thing about it."

Rose wrapped her arms around him and whispered soothing words into his ear as he clung to her fiercely. They had been in so many close-calls before so Rose couldn't understand why it was now that the Doctor felt the need to react this way, he was practically in tears!

"I'm sorry Rose. I'm so sorry!" His arms were almost painfully tight around her back. She managed to pull herself away and to pull him over to sit on her bed.

"Doctor, why are you like this now? We've been in plenty of tight situations before, what's gotten into you?"

He seemed to have composed himself enough to answer. "It just finally sunk in for me Rose… You could have died, and I would be the one responsible…"

Rose snorted. "No you wouldn't."

"What? Rose, of course I would! I brought you there!"

"But I coulda said no, an' I didn't, yeah? An' I'm not dead am I? See?" She pulled his hand to lie over her heart. "So stop beatin' yourself up over something that didn't even happen!"

The Doctor sighed. "But it's more than that… Every time I bring you somewhere something bad happens. One of these days, you're going to get hurt, and it'll be my fault. And I—You… you mean a lot to me Rose. You have helped pick me up so much since the Time War, and I just—I don't want to—"

Rose drew him in for another hug. "S'okay Doctor… s'okay. I'm not going to leave you, so don't you even think that for a second!"

Suddenly he pulled away from her to grip her by the arms and look her in the eye. "Don't change Rose. Don't ever change. Promise me that! Keep all those daft little things about your personality like the way you eat clementines, and how you wear too much makeup, and the way you're tongue pokes out during a smile when you tease. Rose don't ever lose those things, because they're part of what makes you, you, and I want to have you around for a very long time to come. So don't change. If not for yourself then do it for me, silly old Time Lord that I am, do it for me…"

Rose smiled at him and cupped his face in her hands. "I won't. I promise I won't change. I'll eat clementines, I'll wear too much makeup, and I'll smile the way I smile when I'm teasing someone, and I won't ever stop."

The Doctor smiled back at her. "Good." He said.

They hugged again and the Doctor almost stifled a huge yawn.

"Oi! What was that you keep on telling me about Time Lords never needing to sleep?!" Rose joked.

"We need sleep like any other being in the universe Rose, just much less of it…" He looked at her warily. "Could I—Could I stay with you tonight?"

"Course Doctor." Rose said with a grin. "Few things though…"

"What's that?"

"One, trainers, tie, and jacket off, and two, if you snore I'll kick you out."

"I do not snore Rose Tyler." The Doctor sniffed shrugging off his jacket before slipping out of his shoes.

Rose rolled her eyes as she ducked back under the covers. When the Doctor joined her she was both surprised and amused to find that he was a cuddle-er. His head had found rest just above her heart and his arms had wrapped around her waist before he was still.

It was a few minutes before Rose dared to make a sound. "What do you mean I wear too much makeup?" she asked.

There was no reply, just a groggy murmur and the Doctor's arms tightening a little around her before he relaxed again.

Among Rose's discoveries that night was also the discovery that Time Lords do in fact, snore, but she found it really too endearing to have the heart to kick him out.


	4. Chapter 3: Hospital

A/N: This is just a cute little thing that wouldn't let me go. Read this as Ten or Ten II, whomever you prefer.

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The Doctor stared nervously at Rose. He hadn't slept in the 48 hours they'd been at the hospital. He shifted nervously for the seventeenth time that minute and began drumming his fingers on the armrest in place of his foot anxiously bouncing up and down.

He closed his eyes and relived the moments of suffering Rose had gone through the day before.

Pain had been written all over her face, her voice crying out her agony throughout the room. The Doctor simply had to stand there and _watch_ as the "professional" M.D. doctors did their job to patch Rose up as best they could. He remembered whispering to Rose that he could probably do just as good of a job as these human doctors could.

The human doctors continued to speak words of encouragement to both the Doctor and Rose during the whole process. The Doctor didn't even register the words; he was too intent on soothing Rose as much as he could.

She had his hand in a death-grip to try and convey to him what exactly she was going through right now, and he made the mistake of leaning down to brush his lips over her forehead which she took as a cue to grasp him by the hair and snarl accusations in his ear. The Doctor yelped when she tugged on his hair hard before letting him go. However when he dejectedly went to leave the room, she caught his hand tenderly in her own and she begged him to stay. How could he refuse?

Then suddenly there was a lot of blood and a lot more crying.

That was 16 hours, 43 minutes, and …32 seconds ago?

Now Rose was sleeping off the trauma to her body and the Doctor was left waiting for her to wake up. The rational half of his mind said that these human doctors had reassured him at least fifty times that Rose was in fact fine, despite her loss of blood, and she should wake up in a few hours, right now all she needed was rest. The slightly less rational third of his mind was running around in circles telling him to try and wake her up and to figure out why she wasn't awake yet.

He glanced up at the clock, about 8 seconds had passed since he last looked… this was going to drive him spare, he decided.

"Mr. Smith?" A voice called. He didn't realize that he was the Mr. Smith in question until a hand touched his shoulder. He started then turned to see a nurse, who did not have the face of a cat, give him an apologetic smile.

"Yes, what is it? Is it Rose? Is she still alright?"

"Yes, Mr. Smith, Rose is still fine. Nothing's changed in five minutes…"

"Good." He said then slumped back into the chair, he hated waiting like this…

"Mr. Smith, I came to say that you can come and see her now."

"Her?—Oh!"

The nurse without the face of a cat led him through the hospital to one secluded wing with all sorts of cartoon characters painted on the walls.

"She's in there." The nurse without the face of a cat said.

The Doctor looked through the glass and saw a nursery, with all these little plastic cradles sitting on elevated tables, with little bundles of pink or blue lying in them.

"Which one is she?"

The nurse without the face of a cat smiled and pointed to one cradle a little off to the right. "That one." She said.

The Doctor suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to hold her, to carry her away from that cold generic looking room and keep her wonderfully and perfectly safe and happy.

"Can I hold her?" he could barely get the words past the emotions caught in his throat. He never thought he'd get another chance at being a father. Not since Jenny, and he'd royally mucked that bit up.

"Course!" the nurse without the face of a cat said, and then went to go and retrieve his little baby daughter.

The Doctor couldn't help but smile when she was placed in his arms. This was his first time holding her. She had only been allowed to sit in Rose's arms for a moment until she was whisked away to be bathed and swaddled, and there was no way the Doctor was letting her out of his sight now.

"You should probably go back to the room now Mr. Smith. Mrs. Smith will be waking up any minute now."

The Doctor nodded and said a brief but heartfelt, "Thank you" then made his way back to the room where Rose was still sleeping off her labor.

However, now that his arms were occupied with the tiny pink bundle he wasn't so anxious.

As he sat in the chair he analyzed the little girl in his arms. His child, his first child with Rose. The Doctor didn't think he could be any happier until the baby opened her eyes and she smiled. He felt as if his chest was going to burst with joy. She had her mother's eyes, and her smile. Then he felt a small itch at the back of his mind and he almost didn't recognize it for what it was until he felt a rush of emotions that weren't his own. The baby had set up a temporal bond with him and for the first time in oh, so many years, he had someone filling up the empty spaces in his head with a psychic link. Tears sprang to his eyes then.

"Oh, you clever little thing." He whispered, and showered her with love through their link.


	5. Chapter 4: What Love Means

A/N: First off: there is so much more to love than what I put in Rose's explanation. I was going to try and put in more, but I felt that it would be completely irrelevant to what was being said, so forgive me for leaving it out.

Second: This fic popped into my head after watching Silence in the Library and Forests of the Dead for a second time. After seeing the episode for the first time when it aired (and hating River's guts), I used the River/Doctor conversation about archaeologists to help get me into uni. What do you know, it worked! I got into Cardiff University a week later… (irony? I think not!) So now I find it incredibly hard to hate River, as any self-respecting Doctor/Rose fan should... As a companion, she really will be a lot of fun I think, as a love interest, I'm still iffy, and still a Doctor/Rose fan. However, due to my love for the character of the Doctor, I would much rather see him happy, than see him as angsty and mopey as he was by the end. So I decided that falling for River in the future may not be such a bad thing. Then I realized that TenII, 10.5, Handy, cloen, whatever you like to call him needed to have a very interesting conversation with one Miss Rose Tyler, so I made him do it.

Thanks for reading, please review. I love reviews, reviews are good. Make sure you tell me if I'm getting the characters all wrong and stuff like that. I try very hard to get their voices right, and I'm not sure if I'm quite there yet, especially when I put them in situations which are entirely domestic like this, so let me know if Rose sounds like Rose and the Doctor sounds like the Doctor. (note: where I do try to get their speech patterns correct, I don't aim to replicate their accents… I would tear my hair out with spellings and having to go back and rewatching constantly (more so than I already do), that is just too much trouble for me for something I do for fun)

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It was late one night when the Doctor realized that he had a question to ask Rose. It wasn't a happy question, or a typical question, or any sort of question he'd ever asked of her before. In fact, the Doctor wasn't quite sure what type of question this would be considered. It was tricky, sad, and left a nasty taste in his mouth that hadn't been there until he'd thought of the question in… well, in question.

He did however, know that this was a question that _had_ to be asked. At this very moment, in fact.

So he turned over in bed and looked at one, Rose Marion Tyler, the potential answerer of the Doctor's nasty-tasting question. Rose was, as always, looking quite lovely, she was also sitting next to him in their shared bed, in their shared apartment, wearing a set of posh eye glasses that he was sure she hadn't needed until all the fine print of Torchwood had strained her eyes. She was reading a well-loved book that night, before she would inevitably, reach over, turn out the light, then burrow down under the blankets piled high on their bed, for it was as a matter of fact, the dead of winter. Before drifting off to sleep, but after a tired yawn, she would typically reach over to kiss him goodnight, and then snuggle into his arms. This in itself was a scenario, the Doctor, before a biological metacrisis, would never have dreamed of, not because he didn't want to, but because he couldn't.

However, all of these observations were simply the Doctor stalling, and by now Rose had noticed him staring.

"What?" she asked with a soft smile, placing her finger between the covers of her book to keep her place marked on the page. The Doctor watched that movement for a moment and fought down the urge to scan each and every shadow in the room with his newly completed sonic-screwdriver until he was 100% positive that there was nothing sinister lurking, waiting for them to turn out the light so it could pounce, and devour them before either had the chance to properly work up a scream. His eyes rose to meet hers and the words caught in his throat.

"Doctor?" Rose asked, her face dropping the smile and bordering on concerned. "What's wrong? You alright?"

"Rose," the Doctor began, "Can I ask you a question?"

Rose shifted to get a better look at him. "'Course you can."

The Doctor paused taking in her worried expression. "I love you, you know that right? I don't say it nearly enough, but I do. When I was a Time Lord I couldn't say it, but I'm human now so I can, but I don't, and I should. And I'm sorry for that, and…"

A gentle hand on his cheek cut the flow of his babbling.

"Yeah, I know. And it's fine that you don't say it all the time, that makes it special when you do." Rose said. "S'that all you wanted to ask me?"

"No, that isn't what I wanted to ask you at all." The Doctor sighed. "I'm rubbish at this aren't I?"

Rose smiled affectionately. "S'alright, I'm not going anywhere. Take your time."

The Doctor thought for a minute about how to properly phrase his question, then he took a deep breath and began to speak.

"If I-he found someone who doesn't replace you per say, but… fills in the gaps that you left. Would you feel like I was betraying you, or cheating on you, or anything like that?" At Rose's quizzical expression he asked. "Do you understand?"

"First off, are we talking about you or him?" They didn't need to explain who "he" was. "He" was the other him, the other Doctor, the one who had left both of them in this universe with so very many questions that they've done their best to answer. In the end, they agreed that this him, the him currently lying in bed next to Rose Tyler, was indeed the Doctor, just _human_, therefore able to express and act on his emotions in ways that the Time Lord Doctor was mentally unable to do, like for instance, saying "I love you" to the woman who meant the world to him.

"Both actually," The Doctor said, trying to answer her question, "Well, sort of. My past, his past, but his future as well, but not mine."

Rose nodded, not really understanding at all, but willing to try her best. "I think that yes, I would feel betrayed. At least at first I would, I'd definitely be hurt. But if this person makes you happy, then I suppose I could live with it. When you truly love someone you are able, if not willing, to let them go, even if it hurts you so much to do it, because you know that they'll be happy." She looked at him. "That's what love means, being ready to do _anything_ for the person that you love, as long as it means that they'll be happy, or safe, or anything else that's good."

They looked at each other for a long time, studying each other in a way and in a light that neither had looked at the other in before.

Suddenly, Rose's eyes grew sad.

"Have you— Did you find someone else?"

"No!" The Doctor exclaimed. "No, no, no, no! No, nothing like that. You're not getting rid of me that easily." He grinned, and smiled even wider when she returned it. He drew her closer and kissed her on the lips. "No, nothing like that, not ever."

Rose peered up at him from the safety of his arms, and asked. "Where did all of this come from then, Doctor?"

The Doctor was quiet for a moment, but then began to tell her of one of his adventures with Donna Noble. When he had taken her to The Library after promising a trip to the beach, and how he'd gotten a message signed with a kiss, and how he'd learned that this strange woman he'd never met would someday be someone he trusted so completely that he'd tell her his true name. Rose felt a stab of jealousy at this part.

"When is it that you can tell someone your real name?" Rose asked.

"You'll be the first to know when it happens." The Doctor said, trying to move on with his story. Now that everything was getting let out, he didn't want to stop.

"Doctor, I'm being serious! Don't you trust me enough to tell me?"

The Doctor sighed. "No Rose, that isn't it at all. I would love for nothing better than to tell you my name, but I can't. I really can't. Besides, 'a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,' right?"

"I never understood that line…" Rose said, wrinkling her nose.

"It means that it doesn't matter what name you give to something, it's still the same thing. At this point it wouldn't matter if I were called by my real name, or the Doctor, or John Smith, or even Roger Rabbit! I'd still be me. Get it?"

Rose nodded sadly, but then grinned. "So does that mean I can call you Roger Rabbit now?"

"No, just… no. Don't even think about it." He said, looking at her sharply. Rose giggled.

"Alright, Mr. Roger Rabbit."

"Can I get on with my story?" Rose nodded. "Good."

So he continued, and when he got to the end Rose understood some of his reasons for asking her.

"So you're going to meet River again? Well, the other you-- him."

"Evidently, yeah. But I don't think it'll be during this regeneration. She seemed to hint that I looked different when she knew me, and then I had maybe regenerated again the last time I saw her."

"Did you love her?"

He looked at her solemnly. "Not yet. I'm not entirely sure I ever will… She was a bit vague on that bit. Which is one reason why I don't think it happens during this regeneration. You were too far ingrained in my psyche for me to ever really move on. I mean the only reason I took a shine to Astrid was because—"

"Who's Astrid?"

"Ah… I haven't told you about the Titanic yet, have I?"

"No, you haven't."

"I see. Well… Rose can we leave that for another night please?"

Rose looked rather annoyed but settled back into his arms with an, "Alright, you're off the hook for one night."

"Rose?" The Doctor said after some silence.

"Yes, Doctor?" she sighed contentedly.

"So you wouldn't mind, if he regenerated and fell in love with someone else?"

Rose lifted herself onto her elbows. "No." she said, "I wouldn't. He needs someone with him, to keep him going, and to tell him when to stop. She sounds like she would be good for that. Besides I'm glad that he does find someone. It means I can stop worrying. I love him too you know. He is you after all."

"Yeah." He pulled her to his chest again, and took comfort from her nearness.

"Doctor?" This time it was Rose who broke the silence.

"Yes, Rose?"

"I love you too, yeah? I don't mind if he falls in love, because he's not _you_, I mean physically, you're here with me, he's all alone. But you're all I need, you're all I want. It's taken me a while, but I see that. As long as you're here with me I don't want anyone else."

The Doctor smiled, "How long you gonna stay with me?"

Rose smiled back. "Forever." She promised, again.

They smiled at each other then they kissed, and eventually both found sleep.

But not before Rose asked.

"So you ever gonna tell me your real name?"

"Rose," the Doctor sighed. "I can't promise you anything… There were rules on Gallifrey, rules that were so deeply set into one's mind that you can't ever really get rid of them… I'll try, I swear I'll try. But I can't make any promises that I ever will be able to."

"Then that's good enough for me." She said, but the Doctor knew he was in trouble when her tongue poked out from between her teeth. "Until then I'll just have to call you Roger Rabbit."

"Rose!" the Doctor groaned.

"Night, Roger Rabbit!" she said, and snuggled up to him.

"Rose, you're not serious are you? Rose? Rose! Rose--!"

She cut him off with a goodnight kiss.

"'Night Doctor. Love you." She whispered, and his arms tightened around her in reply.

And somewhere far away, in another universe, the TARDIS hummed, and the universe spun slowly on.


	6. Chapter 5: My Lover's Gone

My Lover's Gone

His boots no longer by my door

He left at dawn

And as I slept I felt him go

Returns no more

I will not watch the ocean

My lovers gone

No earthly ships will ever

Bring him home again

Bring him home again

Rose stood on the beach of Dalig Ulv Stranden. She had followed the Doctor's voice almost seven hundred miles to Norway, only to be cut off before he could return her feelings. She was sure he was going to say it, absolutely positive, but then the star had run out it seemed and Rose had been left hanging.

He would be back. She kept on saying. He'll be back. To Mum. He'll be back. To Mickey. He'll be back. To Pete. He'll be back. To Herself.

"He'll be back." She whispered to the wind this time, and the wind carried the whisper out to sea. "He'll be back for me."

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Rose stood on the beach of Dalig Ulv Stranden. This was her eighth trip to the beach in three months. One of the perks of having a rich almost-father was that you could take as many vacations as you wanted. But these were hardly vacations.

Jackie had tried to keep her from going on this trip but Rose had insisted, promising that this would be the last one she took to Norway before, and she swore, she would try and move on, try and make a life here. She can't remember how many times she'd promised that now.

It was cold on the beach; it was late summer and this far north the arctic winds were already blowing steadily. Winter would soon be upon these lands, but to Rose it already felt like they were here. It felt like they were already here and they were never going to turn back. How could this world ever feel warm when there was no Doctor here to warm it for her?

This universe was wrong, everything about it felt wrong. She shouldn't be here; she should be with him, with the Doctor, keeping him company throughout all of time and space. Rose's mind wouldn't stop repeating this mantra of discontent. She was beginning to sound like a bratty twelve-year-old even to herself.

It was time. Time to leave, time to move on, time to give up.

But then, if she gave up, she wouldn't be Rose Tyler anymore would she?

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My lover's gone

I know that kiss will be my last

No more his song

The June upon his lips has past

I sing alone

While I watch the ocean

My lover's gone

No earthly ships will ever

Bring him home again

Bring him home again

The Torchwood Institute, Canary Warf, London, England, United Kingdom, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky way Galaxy. It sounded like as good a place to work as any, even if it was the wrong universe.

Rose had just caught the 7:30 a.m. train into London from the Tyler Estate with Pete on a non-descript Monday morning for her first day as an official Torchwood employee. Rose had been somewhere between horrified and intrigued when Pete had offered to get her a high-ranking position in the Institute as an alternative to working in a shop again. Rose had declined the high-ranking position in favor of an entry level job so she could work her way up without raising any eyebrows, or coming out of the woodwork any more so than she already had.

She'd been in this universe for a little over three months now, it was a week since her last visit to Dalig Ulv Stranden and Rose was missing the Doctor no less than before. Jackie had continued to be the concerned mother and told her daughter that she promised it would get easier with time. Rose lost her temper saying that Jackie had no idea what she was going through. Jackie had remained calm, and quietly pointed out that she did indeed know at least vaguely what Rose was going through. After all, Jackie hadn't always been married to her dead-husband's doppelganger. Rose, then feeling like a right git flew into her mother's arms with apologies on her lips and fresh tears in her eyes.

That had been the day that Rose Tyler had finally gotten her act together, and decided to make a solid effort of having a life here.

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The last strains of the song "Happy Birthday to you" had just faded into the cavernous space of the Torchwood office building. This was when Mickey had decided to give Rose her birthday present.

"I've got a surprise for you." He said with a wink and a smile. Rose sighed, rolled her eyes, but followed him anyway.

In the basement of the Torchwood building Mickey led her into a room in which Jackie, Pete, Jake and few of her other work friends were standing. They all smiled at her knowingly and Rose began to feel a bit uneasy.

"What's all this then?" she asked, shifting from one foot to the other, and sticking her hands in the back pockets.

A Dimension Cannon is what Mickey called it. To be perfectly honest it looked a bit like one of those star-gates from that American Sci-Fi show she watched on the telly on Saturdays.

"What's it do?" she asked.

"What you think it does? " Mickey replied a little bit shocked she hadn't worked it out yet. "That thing'll rip a hole in the barrier between universes big enough for you or me or anyone to step through."

He then moved around her to pick up one of a series of great-big-yellow-buttons that looked suspiciously like the ones that had brought her here.

"And these…" Mickey continued, "will bring you anywhere in that universe that you could possibly want to go. At least, they will… once we get 'em working properly…"

Rose was finally beginning to suss it all out.

"You mean, these'll… this is for… I can go and find the Doctor?" Rose searched the faces around the room hopefully.

"That's exactly what we mean." Jake said with a grin.

Rose turned to her mum. "But I thought…"

"Rose, sweetheart, I know what I said." Jackie began. "But that was when you were just looking for a way that just didn't exist. Now, there might be a way for you to get back to your Doctor, and I know that once you heard that, that there'd be no stopping you so I might as well give you my blessing now."

Rose smiled brightly, but then she remembered.

"But, won't this be threatening to collapse two universes?"

"Well, yeah, but we figured that one or two people wouldn't be quite as dangerous as five million Cybermen and a big ball full of Daleks…" Mickey said wrinkling up his nose.

"To be perfectly honest Rose, we're not just doing this for you." Pete said stepping forward. "The stars are going out and the cannon has started working as if by magic… We need you to find to Doctor so he can find out what's going on and put an end to it. We figured he'd respond best to us sending you rather than someone else. Besides we all think you deserve it, given all you've done for the planet…"

"And the universes." Mickey added.

Rose couldn't stop smiling. "I don't know what to say." She gushed through the tears of joy on her cheeks.

"You'll take the mission then?" Pete asked.

"Hell yes!" she replied.

"Good. Mickey, I want you to accompany her. Rose, you two start in the morning."

And just like that, Rose didn't need to give up anymore.

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My lover's gone

His boots no longer by my door

He left a dawn

And as I slept I felt him go

Returns no more

I will not watch the ocean

My lover's gone

No earthly ships will ever

Bring him home again

Bring him home again

Rose Tyler stood on the beach of Dalig Ulv Stranden. This was her first visit to the beach in at least a year, and to be perfectly honest she'd never expected to be standing on it ever again.

This time Jackie was with her, and was busy calling up Rose's almost-father, to send some sort of transportation to get them back to England… back home.

It was cold on the beach; it was late summer and this far north the arctic winds were already blowing steadily. Winter would soon be upon these lands, but to Rose it already felt like they were here. The Doctor had just left her standing on the beach with someone she wasn't sure even who he was. But he had said "I love you" with the Doctor's voice and in that one moment where a decision had been made, it had been enough.

Now she wasn't so sure.

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck… is it really a duck?

That's what she was thinking when he took her hand into his painfully familiar one, and they looked at each other.

It took her a while to realize that he too was looking at her with the same analytical gaze. He was trying to figure out how much she had changed from the Rose he remembered, among other things.

This intense analysis was finally broken when Jackie announced that a zeppelin would be to the nearest airport in a few hours, and that they'd better start hoofing it if they expected to get there on time.

Conclusions would have to be made another time.

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In the first few months, fights were had, things were thrown, feelings were hurt, doors were slammed, tears were shed, and people moved out.

The Doctor moved out first, and until Pete found him at a soup-kitchen one day, they had lost track of him entirely. Pete had then offered the Doctor a position with Torchwood that he really couldn't refuse, it included lodgings until he could find his own, and a check each month that would keep him warm, comfortable, and fed.

Rose moved out of her parent's house shortly after the Doctor did. She found her own apartment in the middle of London, paid for by her promotion to field team leader. She hadn't known that her almost-father had hired the Doctor until she'd crashed into him in the lunch queue one day. She had been talking to a friend and not looking where she was going and he had been standing to grab some sort of utensil for whatever he was eating and her food when flying all over his new suit. They both bent down to clean up her tray and when they straightened both had paled considerably and scurried off to opposite ends of the cafeteria.

Her mother wasn't helping any, well, she was trying. At her Christmas party she had ushered Rose into the kitchens telling her that she had to show her something in the pantry, and at the same time Pete had shoved the Doctor into the room as well. They had remained locked in the room until they made a solid effort at apologizing which deteriorated into an argument which deteriorated into a food fight in which hors d'oeuvres served as projectiles and the platters they were on served as shields. The caterer, Jackie, and Pete finally stepped in when they heard glasses breaking.

Rose groaned when she learned that Jackie had talked Pete into putting the Doctor as the tech-specialist on Rose's team for one mission. This mission had also found them knocked out, tied to chairs and hand-cuffed together. The hand-cuffs had to be removed three-days later back at head-quarters after the mission was over because the Doctor's newly finished sonic screwdriver was broken, and because nothing else they brought was working to undo the bio-signature shackles. However, there was no food-fight or any arguing, primarily due to the fact that the handcuffs were counting down to the time when they would explode and ultimately kill both wearers, which could be set off early with too much struggling. They had also learned how to live within three feet of each other at all times, this included showering and other daily necessities.

Three months, and an alien invasion later, in which this clone of the Doctor saved the universe using nothing but a kettle and some string and oddly while wearing a vegetable… Rose ran up to him only to hug him enthusiastically, kiss all of his cuts and bruises, and chastise him for scaring the hell out of her. It was only when she noticed this Doctor staring at her like he thought she was completely bonkers and told her so, and she noticed several other people she worked with staring, that she bolted back to her flat and did an altogether stellar job of avoiding him again. This was after a few weeks of some sort of physical or verbal acknowledgement of the other's presence when one passed the other in the hall, or cafeteria, or car park.

Later that week, flowers were bought, tea was drunk, conversations had, apologies and explanations given and accepted, love was made, and suddenly, this universe didn't seem quite as wrong or as lonely as it always had, because suddenly Rose knew there was someone just as lonely and just as confused as she was, and he was currently lying naked next to her on her bed, in her apartment, in this different London, in this different England, in this different United Kingdom, on this different Earth, in this different Solar System, in this different Milky way Galaxy, in this different universe. But the most amazing thing was that all of this, was okay, because he was still saying he loved her, with a voice that was just as much the Doctor's as it has always been, and when she thought about it, she could honestly say that she was beginning to love this new new new Doctor back, because he was still the same deep down, underneath all of the new mannerisms like, reading the tabloids and grinning at some of the stories and pictures posted about "Rose Tyler: Vitex Heiress," and whomever they posted as her newest "boy-toy," and all of his new phrases like, "wizard," "Earth-girl," or "oi!"

"So, you're still you?" she asked one night after a rather spectacular shag. "Despite…" she waved her hand around her head. "All of this?"

"I'm still me." He said giving her a slow grin that never failed to melt her insides or make her knees wobble ever so slightly.

"And…" she paused nervously, "all of this," she gestured with her hand again, "Are you okay with all of this, with us, with all this domestic… with me?"

"It takes some getting used to, after… well, all of time and space at my disposal, but I'm getting there. But I am definitely fine with one bit." He said, nodding.

"What's that?" she asked. She wasn't disappointed by his answer, not really, it was more than she had ever hoped for, and like he said, it took some getting used to.

The Doctor grinned before answering her, "Being stuck here with you, that's not so bad."

"Yeah?"

"Yes." But then he asked, "And are you okay with…" he mimicked her hand waving. "All of this?"

Rose paused before answering, and really thought about it. "Yeah, I think I am." She said, nodding definitively.

"Yeah?" he confirmed, looking like the cat with both the canary and the cream.

"Yeah." She replied.

"Wizard." He says with a smile which until very recently always followed the word, "Brilliant," or until not so recently, "Fantastic."

And she really was okay with it, all of it. He might not have been her original Doctor, but he was _her_ Doctor, and for Rose Tyler that was enough.

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A/N: I wrote this over the course of one day, and I'm rather happy with it. It tends to ramble, and go in no direction but all the same; I think this is one of my favorite little bits of fluff I've written… After writing it, I feel a bit like a chef who made a rather lovely cake but is covered in flour for their trouble. Anyway, this is really apropos of nothing, and tries to explain way too much with way too little. The relationship between Rose and the Doctor is so very complicated but I did my best to show it how I did. And I do think that Rose and TenII really do get their sort of fairy-tale ending… meaning a lifetime of running and getting into all sorts of trouble, but I also feel that it takes them a lot of talking and arguing and tears and breaking up before they can get there. He's a human with the mind of an alien, and she had a lot of doubts and questions, they have some serious angst to work through, this fic just covers it as best it can in one go.

Song by Dido.

As always, reviews are lovely…


	7. Chapter 6: Rosebud

A/N: Written in response to a series of picture prompts from themasterspet over at LJ. Might do a couple more… there were some other ones that looked intriguing. This wasn't the prompt I had originally planned to use… but hey, my muse is very fickle.

Grandma Prentice lived on the coast.

She had a little cottage, and a big garden, and six-and-three-quarter-old Rose Tyler couldn't hold in her excitement when she could smell the ocean from her bedroom window.

Her mum, Jackie Tyler, had saved up for a month (meaning absolutely no chips for a whole month!) to get them here for the week. Rose initially had moaned when Jackie mentioned that they were going to visit Grandma Prentice. Grandma Prentice smelled like kitty litter, and her kisses were too wet… But then Jackie mentioned that they would be visiting her house on the seashore, and Rose found that the idea of seeing the ocean for the first time far outweighed the displeasures of seeing Grandma Prentice.

It was seven in the morning, according to the digital clock on the lacy nightstand next to her lacy frilled bed… which also smelled like kitty litter, so Rose figured that it was still early enough for her to slip out of the house and down to the seashore for a few minutes then pop back inside before her mother woke up. They had gotten in late last night and Jackie promised to take her down to the beach first thing in the morning, but Rose just couldn't wait a second more. She'd just pretend to be surprised and in awe of the beach when her mum brought her down later that morning.

Rose hopped out of bed and dressed herself in a light blue shirt that had white sleeves that made it look like she was wearing two shirts at once, she also pulled on a pair of darker blue sweat pants and a pair of well-loved wellies, before she snuck down stairs, tiptoed out the front door, then broke into a run when she reached the garden gate.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Rose Tyler was confused, and maybe a little bit lost. First of all, the beach was nothing like she'd imagined. She'd seen plenty of beaches on all of the travel shows on tellie, and she'd seen others in the window of the travel agency down the street back home. Where were the palm trees? Why wasn't the sun shining over clear turquoise waters? Why did the sand not look like miniature yellow diamonds? This wasn't what a beach was supposed to look like!

It was a normal grey day and the clouds over head were reflected grey on the water. Through breaks in those clouds patches of sky-blue could be seen but those were few and far between. A stiff breeze was kicking up the looser sand and tossing it in Rose's eyes. Greeny-brown seaweed crunched under her wellies and little brine-bugs jumped out of the way of her steps. Rose had been wandering for… a long time now and she wanted to go back to Grandma Prentice's for the pancakes she had been promised. The only problem was, she couldn't remember which direction exactly Grandma Prentice's was.

Instead of panicking, Rose did what Rose did best, made the most of the situation, eventually her mother would come along and find her, probably spank her for wandering off, but in the end she'd be safe and happily eating pancakes, and that's really all that mattered.

By making the most of it, Rose decided that startling the seagulls into flight was the best option. So Rose Tyler ran across the expanse of beach with her arms flung wide and making her closest impression to a seagull-call. The birds were satisfyingly startled away from their savaging and took to the air when Rose got too close.

Eventually Rose had to stop and flopped onto the beach with a huff, and lay looking up at the clouds, her chest heaving from her previous exertion.

Suddenly a face blocked out the sun and rudely, but brightly called, "Hello!"

Rose screamed.

"Whoa, whoa! Shh!" The stranger said, putting his hands on her shoulders and working very hard to calm her down. When Rose stopped screaming he smiled brightly at her, "There now, who're you?"

Rose clamped her mouth shut and shook her head.

"Ah," said the man. "You're mum's probably told you never to talk to strangers is that right?"

Rose nodded, her hands still covering her mouth and staring at the stranger wide-eyed.

"Well, then, I can remedy that! Hello, I'm the Doctor. Nice to meet you!" The man offered Rose his hand to shake, and she eyed it warily.

"S'alright," The Doctor said, "S'just my hand." He wiggled his fingers and his eyebrows at the same time and Rose tried very hard not to smile.

Rose finally gave in and shook the man's hand, he had very long fingers and her hand disappeared into his.

"Now then, we can't not be strangers until you tell me your name. I promise I'm very nice. I'm a traveler, _that_," He pointed behind him to a blue box. "Is my travel machine."

Rose was beginning to find fewer and fewer reasons not to like this man. He certainly seemed friendly enough. He had brown hair that was standing up in every direction imaginable, and had warm brown eyes. He was wearing a rumpled brown suit and a long tan coat, and a pair of dirty, well-loved trainers.

"I was just popping by and I noticed you lying out here all by yourself. So, if you tell me your name, I'll get you back to where you came from."

"It's Rose. Rose Tyler."

The man's face was suddenly very different from the gentle smile it had been only a moment before hearing her name. His eyes searched her face frantically before pulling a pen-light-like thing out of his pocket and shining it in her face. It whirred at her.

"Hey! What're you--!?" Rose huffed backing up a few steps.

The light suddenly went out and the Doctor just stared at her with a strange expression on his face.

"Um," she stammered, now nervous under his gaze. "Are you alright?" She asked gently, creeping forward and reaching out one hand to touch his face.

The Doctor started and looked down at her hand. When his eyes returned to her face he was smiling again, but he looked like he was _really_ seeing her now. "What? Yes! Ah… And how old are you… Rose Tyler?"

"Six-and-three-quarters." She answered proudly, grinning at him.

"Six-and-three-quarters." The Doctor repeated grinning. "Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. You know Rose Tyler; I think you're going to be something wonderful when you grow up."

"How's that?" Rose replied, her mood dampening a little. "I live on a council estate… The girls at school say no one great ever grew up on an estate."

"Oh, I wouldn't listen to them." The Doctor said puffing out his cheeks and then blowing out the air through his teeth. "Loads of great people come from council estates!"

"Name three!" Rose insisted.

"Ah…" The Doctor's mouth opened and closed like a fish a few times, Rose giggled. "Well… there was… um… well… alright fine you got me, I don't know anyone besides you, Mickey Smith, and Jackie Tyler, but that hasn't happened yet." He muttered.

Luckily little Rose didn't hear the last bit.

"So what are you doing alone on this beach Rose Tyler?" The Doctor asked.

"I got lost." She admitted. "I really wanted to see the beach so I snuck out of Grandma Prentice's house… but I don't remember how to get back..." she looked vaguely in the direction she had come from earlier, her head whipped around suddenly, her expression excited. "Do you think you could help me?!"

The Doctor smiled fondly. "Always wandering off. Alright Rose Tyler, you have my word that I will get you back to your Grandma Prentice's safe and sound. Come on."

She took his outstretched hand and grinned up at him, the Doctor returned the smiled.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ten minutes and forty-three seconds later the Doctor returned Rose to her Grandma Prentice.

He knew that Jackie Tyler would awake a half an hour later to find her daughter curled on her bed asleep, fully clothed and with sandy boots by the bedside and sandy hair on her pillow.

Rose had told him about this particular excursion when they'd visited one of the beaches on Quixotic 8.7- beta beta/kappa apple pi 67.

She said that the first time she'd ever seen a beach she'd wandered out of her Grandma Prentice's house early and had gotten lost. She'd been returned by, who she supposed was, a local man because he took her through three back gardens, (and the first had a yappy dog that she'd had to sit on his shoulders to pass without her getting bitten), around two sheds (one melon colored, the other green) and through one hedgerow into her grandmother's backyard (which smelled oddly of kitty litter). This was a route that a local person could only know. Rose had also told the Doctor that she and the man had pretended to be on a perilous quest the entire way. The yappy dog had been a fearsome dragon, and the man was a good knight who had protected little Princess Rose most gallantly, even though he had almost dropped her at one point. The sheds had been stone ogres and the hedgerows had been the forests at the boarder of her kingdom. Rose had been so enchanted by the man that she remembered actually wanting to forgo her promised morning pancakes to play with him some more. But he'd refused, claiming to be needed elsewhere. She couldn't for the life of her remember what he looked like though…

The Doctor played his role to the t. Princess Rose was indeed protected from the fearsome yappy dragon, stone ogres were avoided, hedgerows were traversed, and Rose was returned to her Grandma Prentice's back garden… which really did smell of kitty-litter.

And now it was time to say good-bye.

The Doctor hadn't meant to ever see a younger version of Rose, well aside from when she'd been a baby in a bassinet, in a church, at a wedding and the world had been ending. He certainly hadn't known that Rose's "local hero" had been him. He wondered absently if she'd recognized him after all these years, he rather doubted it, she probably would have said something to that effect if she had recognized him.

It was amusing to find that little Rose was just as jeopardy friendly as big Rose was. It was also amusing to find out that big Rose was just as adorable as little Rose was, and just as heartfelt.

But now it really was time to say good-bye.

"You want to come in and have pancakes with us?" Little Rose said, interrupting his thoughts.

Part of him whined like a dog and begged to be allowed to follow this little girl every step of her life and never lose sight of her again… it would be so easy… NO! The other parts shouted. Unfortunately, the parts of his brain shouting no were the ones he listened to.

The Doctor sighed, "I can't."

Little Rose pouted, and he felt his heartstrings tug all over again. "Why not?" she asked, her voice small.

He knelt to her level. "I've got somewhere I've got to be. I've got things I need to do…"

"Will I ever see you again?" He felt it deep in his gut; he remembered another time when she said those words to him, standing on a beach…

But this time the answer was more to his liking.

"Oh, yes."

Rose smiled, and turned to run into the house. "Bye, then!" she called over her shoulder.

He waved, and smiled a little sadly.

The Doctor turned to go and nearly fell flat on his face when something wrapped itself around his knees.

"Thank you, Doctor!" Rose said. He knelt again and hugged her back.

"You're very welcome, Rose Tyler."

She kissed his cheek, and then ran back into her grandma's house for real this time with a bright smile and a "See ya!"

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck as he walked away and shoved his hands in his pockets on his way back to the TARDIS. She hummed a greeting to him when he entered, her consciousness brushing against his in a comforting gesture. He tossed his coat off and walked up to the console and patted some of the levers. Then he sent the ship into the vortex and set the coordinates for random. Who knew? He might run into Rose Tyler again…

When he landed he poked his head out of the door and found himself outside a hospital… Well… he might as well have a peek inside; after all he _was_ feeling a bit… blah…

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A/N: Well… _I_ like it…

Comments are lovely!


	8. Chapter 7: Just a Little Insect

The Doctor jumped when Jackie Tyler's screech reached him through the open door of the TARDIS sitting in her living room.

The Doctor rolled his eyes; really he'd only left a small mess in the kitchen after making toast with jam. A slice of which was currently held between his teeth, as he lay under the consol trying to fix the gravitational tesseract unit which, according to that stupid Type-40 manual he'd misplaced sometime during his fourth regeneration, was fairly essential to time and space travel.

The Doctor crawled out from under the console and exited the TARDIS with the air of a man being led to his execution.

"What is it now Jackie?" He moaned. "I didn't blow up the toaster this time, everything's back in its proper place, and I only got a little bit of jam on the counter—which, I might add, I cleaned up!"

The sight which greeted the Doctor was one of copious amounts of absurd, mixed with varying levels of down-right funny. Jackie was perched very daintily on the back of her sofa and staring at him wide-eyed. The Doctor couldn't hold back his laughter.

"QUIT LAUGHIN' AT ME AND GET IT OUT OF HERE!" The Doctor had to shake his head dramatically and say:

"In a lower decibel please Mrs. Tyler, such as one that's not likely to shatter glass?"

"Don't get smart with me you plum!"Jackie growled, "Now get that thing out of here or I'll regenerate you so many times you won't know which way is up!"

The Doctor looked around for the offensive thing which needed removing. The only thing he could spot that was out of place was his TARDIS.

"What the TARDIS?" he asked.

"No not your bleedin' blue box!" Jackie snarled. "Mind you, I wish you wouldn't park it in my living room!"

"Then what—?"

"GET IT! GET IT! GET IT! GET IT!"

"What?"

She pointed, "THAT THING! RIGHT THERE! GET IT!"

The Doctor followed Jackie's finger.

"What that little bug?"

"YES THAT LITTLE BUG! NOW KILL IT!"

"Jackie, I'm not going to kill a bug!"

"WHY NOT?"

"Because it's got a right to live just the same as you!"

"THEN TELL IT TO STAY OUT OF MY APARTMENT!"

The Doctor sighed and turned to go back into the TARDIS.

"Where are you going?!" Jackie shrieked.

"I was in the middle of some repairs."

"You're not going to kill it?"

"I thought I already answered that. It's just a little insect! What's it done to deserve death?"

"Scared me half to death, and made me spill my drink all over myself!"

The Doctor rolled his eyes, and turned to reenter the TARDIS.

"What's all this noise about then?" Rose asked emerging from the bathroom wearing baggy sweat-clothes and her hair still damp.

"You're mother wants me to kill a Zygaena filipendulae."

"A what?" Both mother and daughter asked at the same time.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "A bug."

"Oh for crying out loud Mum!" Rose huffed and picked up a magazine. "Where is it?"

Jackie pointed and Rose took a step forward.

"Rose! You can't kill it! It's got as much of a right to live as you do!"

Rose met his eyes calmly. "Didn't say I was gonna kill it did I?"

"But you,—I thought,—then what's the magazine for?" The Doctor stuttered.

"Exactly, you _thought_ I was going to kill it." She placed emphasis on the word, "thought." "You didn't ask was I _planned_ on doing."

He watched as Rose walked into the kitchen and retrieved a plastic cup.

"That's your problem Doctor…" she spoke as she knelt down and eased the magazine under the insect.

"You've got a brilliant mind Doctor, really you do, and you're always talking about how us humans always do this and that wrong. But you know what Doctor? You're just as human as they come, you make assumptions, and judge people based on stereotypes." She had trapped the bug with a cup by this time and was making her way over to the door. "Would someone open this for me please?"

The Doctor sprinted to open the front door for Rose, and to hear her dress him down some more.

"You thought that I was going to kill this poor little thing based on my mum's reaction. You thought that based on my previous actions; taking a step forward and picking up a magazine. That I was moving to kill this little guy, instead of simply marking its location so I'd remember and not squish it when I came back with this plastic cup! Based on your assumptions, and biases, and because you were jumping to conclusions, you never imagined that I would do this:" With that Rose turned to the railing and took the cup off the magazine and shook it a little, gently coaxing the bug to take flight. When the small insect tensed and then spread its wings, catching an invisible updraft, Rose turned back to the door and shouted in to her mother.

"Okay, you can get off the chair, it's gone Mummm!" The last word broke off into a squeal of surprise as the Doctor's mouth was suddenly sealed over her own.

Kisses were not a new thing for them. They had been kissing sporadically when the situation called for it ever since being turned into marble statues in ancient Rome. The Doctor had kissed Rose upon his restoration to a body of flesh and blood, and they hadn't found a reason to stop.

This kiss was a little bit different though. It was filled with unspoken words that whispered across her skin in the wake of his. This kiss was full of promises, and amazement, and emotions that could never and would never be spoken aloud for as long as he could keep them inside without bursting from the sheer intensity of it all.

This kiss was his way of speaking his love and admiration for her, this little human woman. The completely daft part of his brain wondered what language kisses spoke in, and another part of his brain groaned in response to, the completely head-over-heels bit saying "the language of love."

"Not that I didn't enjoy it." Began Rose when the Doctor pulled away. "But what was that all about?"

It hurt somewhere in his hearts to realize that Rose was becoming like him, that is, she was getting clever. But it was also something wonderful to have someone who would stand up to him when he was in the wrong.

"Rose Tyler," he said her name in the way that never failed to make her grin back at him. "That was for you being brilliant, absolutely brilliant in all the best ways!"

Rose ducked her head as her cheeks flushed pink. "Thanks." She said, accepting his compliments as gracefully as possible.

"Oi! Get in here you two, or they'll be arresting you for indecency in public!"

"Mum!" rose groaned as she drew back from the Doctor's arms and made her way inside.

And so the day went on as it usually would because today, everybody lived, and today, it was all because of Rose Tyler.

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A/N: Just a bit of fluff. Not much else to say really. Reviews would be lovely!


	9. Chapter 8: Timelocked

Time Locked

It wasn't everyday that the Doctor took her to an archeological site. In fact, they usually avoided them, since the Doctor was prone to getting into arguments with the archeologists over the historical accuracy of their hypotheses. Such visits usually ended with Rose dragging the Doctor away from an argument by the cuff of his coat and aiming half-heartfelt apologies, and smiles over her shoulder, and glowers at the alien next to her. Naturally the Doctor was usually clueless as to what he had done wrong and why Rose was now mad at him.

Luckily, this wasn't one of those days. Rose didn't think she could take it if it had been.

They were exploring the ruins of an ancient city that had been destroyed by a volcano and looked much like Pompeii back on Earth but wasn't. (As Pompeii was fourteen hundred light-years away, and a little over four million years into humanity's past from the time they stood in now.) When Rose and the Doctor couldn't help but be drawn to a crowd that had gathered around on particular spot in the excavation, and judging from the excited chatter that reached the Doctor's ears, he reckoned that someone had found something rather worth the excitement. With that the Doctor gripped Rose's hand in his own and chirped a cheery, "Come on!" before he pulled her toward the crowd.

The Doctor being rude and not ginger pushed his way through the throng of people tugging Rose behind him so that they could get a front row seat. Rose gasped when she looked down at the excavation site. Even the Doctor let out a soft, "Blimey!"

Half-buried in the ground before them lay two perfectly preserved skeletons…

Perfectly preserved except for the caved in skull that was evidence of the immense pressure the bones had been under for however many centuries. But that wasn't the thing that had stolen the breath from Rose's body. The thing that had stolen the breath from Rose's body was the fact that the two skeletons were entwined together; locked forever in an intimate and obviously terrified embrace. Their leg bones were tucked up close to their pelvises, and their hand bones and arm bones were twined in a lover's knot. Eyeless sockets stared deep into the other's and the domes of their skulls were pressed together to whisper comforting thoughts and words of love.

The Doctor crouched onto his haunches and stared down at them. Tears had sprung into Rose's eyes at the morbid romanticism of the scene. The only sounds were the respectfully low murmurs of the crowd about them, and the out-of-place joyful trilling of local birds in a scrubby tree not far off.

"Doctor," Rose managed after a few moments to regain her voice. "What happened here?"

The Doctor didn't answer for a few moments, still taking in this amazing find.

"One day, one perfectly normal day, the mountain this city-state lived in the shadow of, began to rumble. Then after sending ash and smoke and sulfur into the sky for hours, the top of the mountain exploded and sent tons upon tons of rock and ash and debris into the air to fall onto the town below… The town was slowly buried alive. Some fled the city, successfully escaping the wrath of the volcano, but there were many who couldn't. Those who didn't get away fast enough were suffocated and burned in the streets. Others had hidden in their homes in an attempt to outlast the terror nature had unleashed. It wasn't long before they were trapped. Everyone indoors died indoors, either from lack of air, or from their homes caving in on top of them under the weight of the rock and ash belched from the belly of the earth… It seems these two were the latter." He said sadly.

Rose and the Doctor did not budge from the excavation site for a long while. The sun was setting before either one made an effort to move, or speak again.

"S'beautiful, even though it's horrible…" Rose said quietly.

"Why's that?" The Doctor replied. "They died a horrible death, Rose."

"I know that." She said dismissing his statement. "But, they loved each other, and they died together… Imagine it, Doctor. Cowerin' in your home, not really understandin' what's goin' on around you. The only comfort you have is this one person you love is holdin' your hand. You're terrified, because somewhere deep inside you know that today is the day that you die, despite you're best efforts to believe this is just goin' to blow over and as long as you stay inside, away from the ash you'll be alright… deep down inside, you know… you know today is the day the world ends, and the last bit of comfort you have is that you don't have to die alone. The person you love is goin' to be there with you…" Rose had tears coursing down her cheeks at this point, and the Doctor was staring at her with an unreadable expression.

"The person you love is goin' to be there with you though," she repeated. "So it's not so bad…" She motioned to the skeletons casting intricate shadows in the setting sun. "Holdin' each other's hand through the fear and the pain, still holdin' each other when their bones get dug up centuries later… Givin' comfort to one another by simply existin.' It's every couple's dream, Doctor. They're gonna be together forever, for always and always, holdin' each other until the end of time. It's beautiful, timeless… time locked…"

"Yeah…" The Doctor replied he was still watching her; the dying sun was making the tear-trails on her face into glistening rivers. "Their love forever immortalized in the way they died… it is a bit beautiful isn't it?"

"If only you didn't have to do it."

Rose began to sob, and the Doctor moved to comfort her. She cried for the fact that these two lovers were dead, for the fact that they didn't have a proper grave in which to rest. Rose cried for every man, woman, and child who had to suffer a slow death at the hands of an unpredictable disaster. Rose cried for the fact that the Doctor had had to destroy his entire planet, she cried for the fact that there were almost certainly couples who would be forever locked in an identical embrace on his planet, had there been any planet left for them to be found on. The Doctor understood this on some level. Perhaps it was just that a shamefully large portion of his brain was tuned into interpreting her words. Perhaps it was that he was thinking the same thing as she had spoken the words. Perhaps it was just because he felt a connection to the two skeletons in the dust because he could think of no other person he would rather be trapped with at the end of all things.

In any case, the Doctor knew that Rose needed some comfort for herself now and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and she turned into him, to clutch at his jacket and soak her tears into the fabric of his collar.

Rose pulled away for a moment, hope shining in her eyes, hands clutching at his lapels, and the Doctor knew what she was going to ask before she could ask it.

"We could—we could…" Rose sniffed pitifully. "Doctor, we could save—"

"No Rose." The Doctor shook his head.

"But—"She tried again.

"Rose…" He said, closing his eyes to shut out the pleading of hers. "I've told you this before, your wish in my command, but _please _Rose…" the stress he put on the word "please" tore at her heart. "Please, be careful what you wish for…"

The Doctor watched as memory flashed behind Rose's eyes. Memories of Reapers, and churches, and memories of the day her father died. The Doctor saw the idea of rescue snuff out in her eyes and watched it be replaced with pain and mourning for the lives of so many people she never even knew. He marveled for the umpteenth time, at the capacity of the single heart of this wondrous human being, who was no longer the girl he had originally stolen away from planet Earth, but something much more.

"It's not fair." She choked out.

"No, it's not." He agreed. "Not a lot of things are in the universe."

"I love you…" she said, but it was little more than a whimper.

"I know." He replied after a pause, quite blatantly trying to mimic Harrison Ford's famous line in Star Wars.

She grinned at him through her tears, somehow managing to pick up on the reference, and accept it as a satisfactory answer.

She knew too.

He stood and wiggled his fingers in front of her face to coax her up and back to the TARDIS.

"Onwards and upwards?" He sighed.

"Onwards and upwards." She replied taking his hand and following him back to his magnificent blue box.

"How long you going to stay with me?" he asked after a few steps.

She stared at him and said quite seriously, "Forever."

Back in the ruins, the lovers in the dust remained locked in their final embrace until the end of time.

A/N: Review please!


	10. Chapter 9: Challenge

"Okay... we're under a black hole... on a planet which shouldn't exist, with no way out. Right, I've changed my mind, start worrying about me."

The Doctor wrapped his arms around Rose and he felt the tension in her body, he could smell her fear. Even the relative safety of his arms didn't help her relax.

His hold on her tightened reflexively and he stared up at the black hole through the skylight.

A challenge had been clearly issued by his eyes, dark and menacing. He was the Oncoming Storm and therefore, not one to be trifled with.

"I dare you." His eyes said, "I dare you to try and take her from me."

The black hole laughed in reply.

_Challenge accepted_.

A/N: Not much, just a drabble from my overtired mind before bed. Night!

Reviews as always are loved and hugged tightly with much gusto.

Unfortunately you cannot see the icon that inspired this. This is essentially taken from the scene where the Doctor hugs Rose and stares up after she says that line.


	11. Chapter 10: Laughter is the Best Medicin

Jackie Tyler had been having a hard day.

First of all, all of the clients she'd seen today had been the demanding annoying ones who don't shut up about the people that Jackie didn't know and quite frankly didn't give a toss about.

Second, she'd left her bag on the bus.

Third, she'd gotten it back but all of her money was missing.

Fourth, the man next to her was listening to his headphones and singing along, while the woman across from her had been shrieking down the phone to her husband about something altogether unshout-worthy.

Among other things.

The culmination of all these things made Jackie want to stand in the middle of Piccadilly Circus and shout that all of the problems of these people were insignificant to the fact that her only child was off God only knows where (no really, god only knows when and where), with an space-man, (who might as well be her son-in-law) who had the nasty habit of exploding her toaster, and attracting alien invasions to earth by his mere presence, and that she had walked in on the pair snogging in her kitchen that morning, AND that she, Jacqueline Andrea Suzette Tyler, had been having a REALLY bad day.

(Had she actually shouted this in the middle of Piccadilly Circus then they'd have her in a strait-jacket faster than you could say "what a nutter.")

By Jackie having the reputation of scary-almost-mother-in-law to uphold, Jackie had chased said alien back to his blue box with a frying pan when she'd found him snogging her daughter on the kitchen table that morning, when in reality she didn't really care that much anymore. (Which was a scary thought on its own, but that really was beside the point.)

So by this time all Jackie Tyler really wanted to do when she got back to her apartment on the Powell Estate was to curl up in a comfy track suit with a cuppa and watch a marathon of her favorite trashy soap. But that was unlikely with her alien-almost-son-in-law and half-mad daughter being in. Jackie would feel lucky if the sky didn't start raining man-eating bunnies that breathe fire, or if her whole cutlery set didn't randomly sprout legs and walk right out the door.

So one can imagine her unease when Jackie Tyler stepped into her apartment and found it completely unharmed in anyway and silent. That strange blue box was still in the court yard down stairs, so Jackie knew that Rose and the Doctor were still on Earth so she couldn't imagine where they were off to for it to be so quiet. It was never quiet when they were visiting…

"Rose sweetheart? You in?" Jackie called setting her keys in the little glass dish sitting on the lamp table by the front door.

"Yeah mum!" Rose's muffled voice came from the general direction of her old bedroom. 'Oh Lord… please God don't let them be naked.' Jackie said to herself. 'The last thing I need today is a view of his skinny arse!'

"You two decent in there?" Jackie asked standing outside the closed door of her daughter's room.

"Mum!" Rose's best horrified shriek came from behind the wood.

"Well I don't know what you two get up to when I'm gone! You're an adult now love, you think I don't know what it is that adults get up to when they're left alone together? Especially when I walked in on you two this morning…" Jackie defended herself as she pushed the door open.

Jackie stared for a moment before what she was seeing registered properly and she burst into hysterical laughter.

The sight which greeted her was Rose and the Doctor sitting on Rose's bed with pillow cases over their heads that had funny faces drawn on the fabric. It was by far the funniest thing Jackie had seen all week.

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Rose and the Doctor pulled the pillow cases from over their heads and watched Jackie Tyler sink to the floor, her knees giving out from laughter.

"Well I didn't think it was that funny." The Doctor said cocking an eyebrow.

"I used to do this as a kid." Rose explained. "When I knew mum had had a hard day I'd do my best to make her laugh when I got home."

"But really, pillow cases with silly faces?"

Rose's response was to pull said pillow case over her head and face the Doctor.

The Doctor was soon doubled over with laughter.

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After she had recovered, Jackie Tyler walked up to her daughter and held her in a tight hug.

"Thank you." She whispered. "You still always know just what I need."

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A/N: It's true, laughter really is the best medicine.


	12. Chapter 11: Barely There

A/N: after watching a History channel special on Stonehenge and the unique acoustics of the site I came up with idea. The interesting bit was when they described that it is possible that shaman used the acoustics of Stonehenge to go into a trance by having drummers drum at a certain frequency that turns Stonehenge essentially into a giant singing water glass. The sounds that these drummers could maintain at these frequencies are sort of like a mental lubricant allowing the mind to easily slip into a trance state. Anyway if anyone really wants to know the particulars they can contact me and I'd be glad to tell them. I'd been mulling over ideas for the bump in the night ficathon for a few days so when this dawned on me as I watched the program, I was all too happy to let the muse work it out. And now on with the story.

The Doctor was so excited about their newest destination that he was physically bouncing as he led Rose down the ramp to the doors of the TARDIS. He was guiding her gently by her hands as a handkerchief had been tied around her eyes like a blindfold to keep their location a surprise until the Doctor deemed the view worthy enough for a big reveal.

"You're going to love this Rose! Absolutely love it!" He said for the ninth time since Rose had appeared in the consol room asking where they were off to next.

"Can I see yet?" Rose asked as she stumbled over yet another dip in the ground. It felt as though they were walking over a field of some kind.

"Not yet."

They walked for a few more yards until the Doctor finally deemed this view as the best, the most breathtaking, or simply where he had meant to take her.

"Ta da!" The doctor cried and tugged on the knot in the handkerchief around Rose's head revealing their location with a pomp that only the Doctor could accomplish.

Rose had to admit, Stonehenge was pretty impressive whole and unbroken.

The Doctor had led her to the outer ring of stones and stood her so that she had to crane her neck to see the tops, she felt positively dwarfed by the size and solemnity of the blue-grey rock.

"Rose Tyler I have taken you to a time and a place that archaeologists would be killing themselves for the opportunity to see. It is the year 2387 B.C. or B.C.E. depending on who you ask. And the place you know as Stonehenge is a fully operating religious center, and tonight we are going to have the unique opportunity of seeing one of the rituals performed here."

Rose looked up at the Doctor sharply. "I heard on the telly once that there were human sacrifices and stuff like that here."

"Well, yes, there was the occasional animal sacrifice and even rarer still; human sacrifice, but that's not what we're seeing tonight. Tonight the local shaman and religious leaders are gathering for a communal with the dead. The thing is Stonehenge is like a giant fancy wine glass. When you run your finger over the rim of those wine glasses at a certain speed your finger sends out sound waves and the glass starts to sing."

Rose made an excited noise that meant she was following the Doctor's train of thought for once. They moved into the ring of stones and took a seat near the ring of smaller blue stones.

"Well, Stonehenge can be used the same way. When the drummers near the edges of the circle start drumming at a certain frequency the stones begin to vibrate and hum. It turns out that this frequency is also the same frequency at which the human mind starts to produce alpha waves. And alpha waves are the waves the human brain produces when they are in a state of relaxation but not quite REM sleep. The torches around the inside of the ring also begin to dance when the stones begin to vibrate leading the locals to believe that the gods and spirits are present. It should be quite an experience."

"You've never done this before?" Rose asked when a flare of trepidation suddenly rose in her chest.

"Nope!" The Doctor said cheerfully. "Isn't that brilliant? I've been meaning to do this for quite some time and it's just one of those things that never seemed to happen."

"But Doctor, how do you know that this won't affect you differently than it would a human?"

"I don't." He reached over and squeezed Rose's hand reassuringly. "Nothing bad's going to happen Rose, I promise."

Rose managed to give a weak smile before the nervous feeling in her gut washed it from her face once again.

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As night fell, more and more people filed into the giant ring of stones, soon the place was full and the ceremony was begun. First the shaman walked up to the altar stone and motioned for the torches to be lit. Next the drummers were called in and Rose watched as they made a circle behind the people in the gap between the inner ring and outer ring. Then slowly the drummers began to beat out a pattern.

The Doctor reached for Rose's hand again and squeezed it with an excited grin. The nervous feeling hadn't left her yet so she pulled the Doctor's hand into her lap and laced their fingers together before cupping her free hand around their joined hands.

"It's okay," he whispered to her. "Just watch the flames and let your mind wander a little. This will be over in an hour or so."

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The Doctor had been right, with the drummers beating out a fast pace and making the stones thrum and the ground shake and flames flicker, it was easy to slip into a trance and feel like a sort of presence was all around you. After a while Rose began to feel a bit disconnected from her body save for the tingling in her fingers where the Doctor's hand was still clutched between her own.

Rose was however glad when it was over without her nervousness coming to fruition even though she had enjoyed the experience after all.

People had begun to leave and mingle amongst themselves when Rose pulled herself from her trance.

"Time to go I think Doctor." Rose said starting to pull on their still-linked hands and get up.

He didn't budge.

There was a sinking feeling in Rose's chest and she had to force herself to turn and look at the Doctor.

His eyes were open Bambi wide but had a glazed-over look to them, like he wasn't seeing what was right in front of him.

"Doctor?" she called, shaking him gently with her free hand as she didn't yet have the heart to pull apart. She did notice that his fingers were limp in her own.

"Doctor?" she said a bit more frantically, snapping in front of his eyes, gently tapping his cheeks with the flat of her palm.

Rose's pleas for him to wake up got more and more desperate until she resigned to playing dirty. Rose leaned forward and sealed her lips over his in a bruising kiss, and cupped his crotch with her hand and squeezed with pressure that surely would have hurt, hoping that the shock or pain might wake him.

The Doctor didn't move or even blink.

Rose sat back on her heels and tried not to panic.

She was ecstatic however when the Doctor gasped for breath and blinked furiously.

"Respiratory bypass… forgot how much it hurts when you start breathing again." He said in between gasps for air.

The Doctor then turned to his right with a smile and Rose watched as panic spread over his face.

"Rose?" He called.

"I'm right here." Rose replied, but he was either ignoring her, or hadn't heard her at all.

"Rose? Are you alright?"

Rose finally followed his eyes to one really big thing that she had missed. She saw herself, collapsed on the grass next to the Doctor, his hand still clutched tightly in her own. Rose looked down with horror to discover that though she could feel the Doctor's hands in hers, the hands in front of her face, the hands connected to her body, were empty.

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Rose followed the Doctor as he carried her physical self back to the TARDIS and into the infirmary.

On the way there Rose had discovered that she was entirely invisible, and inaudible to the world around her. However, there was one way in which she could communicate; touch. She could grip and move and use physical things as long as she looked at what she was doing because she couldn't feel any of it. She still had emotions and stuff like that but the only way for her to feel the world around her was for her to feel it on her physical body.

Rose could only guess that the same was true for the rest of her senses as well. She couldn't smell anything, or taste anything but that of the inside of her own mouth as usual. She could hear, but with her body so close to all of the sounds she was hearing (i.e. the Doctor's hearts thumping wildly in his chest and his steady breathing) she guessed that what she was hearing was being picked up by her physical ears as well. Sight, she could only guess was a convenient breaking of what seemed to be the rule. She could see the Doctor's expression was one that she only saw when he was getting ready to do the impossible or otherwise break every single one of his rules.

He set her down gently on the examination table and Rose felt a tug on her heartstrings as she watched him stroke her hair and cup her cheek for a moment with a heartbroken expression on his face. Then he turned away and pulled a machine on a trolley over to the table and pulled a camera-esque device from the ceiling and situated it to hover over her face. Pressing a few buttons on the machine, it powered up and the camera-thing began to scan down her body with a bright red light.

A holographic image appeared floating above her body and the Doctor put on his specs to examine it.

The image was a perfect rendering of her in the nude but maintained her dignity by blurring over those areas that she wasn't too sure she wanted the Doctor to see… well not without some kissing first, at least…

"That's not good." The Doctor said when the scan finished.

"What? What is it?" Rose cried a little panicked, forgetting for a moment that he couldn't hear her.

However the Doctor continued as if he had heard. "Rose Tyler, you appear to be all but brain dead… Everything in your body has shut down, all the major organs, everything… except for your brain. Your brain is going haywire…"

And indeed when Rose looked to the head of the hologram, the brain could be seen flickering and flashing like a London nightclub.

"You seem producing alpha waves like you're still in a trance," the Doctor continued, "but you're also producing the sorts of frequencies as when you're awake… What? But that's impossible!" The Doctor cried ruffling his hair into disarray. "You can't be completely aware of everything around you and completely unaware at the same time! That's a paradox and negates itself a hundred times over…"

Rose looked down at herself looking pale and small on the examination table.

"Oh Rose." The Doctor sighed. He knelt by the table and took her hand. "I'm sorry this happened to you. Whatever 'this' is. I really am."

Rose looked down at the hand by her side as the hand the Doctor was holding on her body tingled and grew warm by her hip. This was quite possibly the weirdest thing that had ever happened to her in her travels with the Doctor, and that included taking into account the times she'd lost her face, been possessed by a bitchy trampoline, and turned to stone.

"I'm going to have to put you in a preserver for a while, until I can figure out a way to revive you. That's a bit like a freezer and will prevent your body from doing any unsavory things like decomposing."

"It's okay Doctor," she said, "Just do what you can, I understand." She brushed her fingers over the back of his neck and the Doctor shook his head and rolled his shoulders as if he'd felt her.

Suddenly there was a blooping sound and the heart of the hologram turned red for an instant, the red then traveled to all parts of her body and faded.

The Doctor had his best solving-the-mystery face on when Rose's eyes turned back to him.

"Oh yes!" He cried and stood suddenly. "You're still alive Rose! Oh you brilliant girl! You're brain's not dead and neither is the rest of you, it's just slowed itself down so that it just keeps you alive! Oh, that's the best news I've had in a long time!" He kissed her body on the forehead and Rose couldn't help but smile.

"You've figured it out?" She knew he couldn't hear her, but she also couldn't bring herself to care when the Doctor was in this type of state.

"I've figured it out Rose! You're still in a trance, for some reason you couldn't break it when the drumming stopped and the circle was broken. But why not? The beat induces a trance… a trance in which people feel like they're communing with spirits or… or…" a smile spread over the Doctor's face. "Oh, now that _is_ brilliant… that would explain all that little stuff going on with the hairs on the back of my neck. I thought it was just static or something slightly timey-wimey but no, it's Rose, has to be… Rose?" He called out to her now rather than babbled to himself. "Rose if you can hear me… you can't move anything can you?"

Rose looked around quickly for something not too-fragile to fling across the room. The Doctor's eye jumped to a trolley when it was hit by a flying jar of dermal repair gel.

"Oi! Careful with that Rose, it's hard to find that stuff anymore… Well, for people without time machines… But you're here. You're in the room with me. If I can just locate…"

The Doctor closed his eyes and concentrated very hard. Rose watched as his hand extended and he walked toward her.

The Doctor stopped when the hairs on the back of his hand stood up from static.

"Hello Rose Tyler." The Doctor grinned. "You're just your consciousness right now, brainwaves, nothing really solid, but I can still feel it when I touch you, all prickly like all over my hand."

Rose stared at the hand coming out of her ribs with something akin to disgust.

"Oooh, what's that… your mood just shifted. Oh, _oh_, sorry then! I must be prodding you somewhere rather unmentionable aren't I?" The Doctor withdrew his hand from her chest and put both hands palms-up in front of him.

"Better let you come to me then… Rose, would you put your hands in mine?"

She did so.

"There you are Rose." He said with a grin. "Barely there at all, but there all the same. Another ghost on the TARDIS. Now Rose I need you to do something for me, I need you to believe that I'm going to fix this. Can you do that?"

Rose squeezed his hands as tightly as she could in reply.

"Oh, you're brilliant you are." He said affectionately, but then pulled away.

With that the Doctor lifted Rose's body from the examination table and dashed through the corridors of the TARDIS.

"Allonz-y!" he shouted over his shoulder.

Rose dashed after him and back out into Stonehenge where the shaman and a few other people were still lingering after their communal.

"Erm, excuse me but I have a bit of a crisis." The Doctor said making his way over to the shaman.

The shaman turned away from the group of people he was speaking to and looked at the Doctor a little unimpressed.

"The faith healings take place tomorrow night. Please come back then." He said with the wave of his hand.

"No, you don't understand, this just happened to her tonight, during the communal ceremony."

"Oh," the shaman said, "That is a bit different… place her on the altar stone."

The Doctor did so.

"This does happen sometimes when the person is inexperienced with the power of the stones. However, it is rather easy to reverse. We will play the drums and you must slip into a trance and go to find her. She is having an out-of-body experience and may be a long way from here."

"I very much doubt that." The Doctor replied, "Very partial to me." He said when the shaman gave him a look. Rose slapped him on the arm and he grinned in her general direction.

"When you find her bring her back and both of you must reenter the trance state sitting in your respective bodies. Then when we cease to play, you will wake up and remember nothing of the experience overall. Some do remember a bit but that is a very rare occurrence."

The Doctor nodded and sat next to Rose's body on the altar stone. The drumming started again and soon the Doctor felt the power of the singing stones and slipped into a trance much like before. Then something different happened, his body seemed to fall away and lie next to hers on the stone but a sort of translucent shape of the Doctor remained sitting upright.

The Doctor blinked a few times and looked around.

"Are you sure this worked?" he asked the Shaman.

The Shaman didn't reply.

"They can't hear you." Rose said, hoping beyond hope that this time he would hear her as she could hear him.

The Doctor's head whipped around and a huge grin split his face when he saw her. "Rose!" he cried and she smiled back.

He hopped off the stone and took several huge steps toward her until he could wrap her in the biggest hug he could muster.

They traveled right through each other.

Rose looked behind her where the Doctor had stepped through her and caught his equally amazed and horrified expression.

"Right, no touch then." He said.

"You can feel when someone touches your body though. An' you can touch things that are real, like solid real, s' the first thing I did when I woke up this way… tried to get you to wake up too cause I thought you were stuck or something." Rose said, "Not that that really makes it any better…"

"Right…" the Doctor nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets. "The sooner we're back in our bodies the better, yeah?"

"Yeah."

The Doctor and Rose lay down on the altar stone, mimicking the positions of their corporeal bodies, "I assume you could hear what the Shaman said about how we get out of this?"

"I did, yeah." Rose nodded. "I'm not going to remember this at all when I wake up."

"Neither am I." the Doctor said.

There was a long pause before he swallowed hard and said, "Since that's the case I'm going to do something that I'm too much of a coward to do when I'm awake…"

Rose felt her heart flutter a little. "What's that?" she whispered.

"This." The Doctor leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the lips of her unconscious body. Rose felt warmth bloom over her incorporeal mouth and she wished desperately to kiss him back.

She hated him a little in those moments that he finally did something she'd always wanted, and Rose would never remember it, and what might be worse, he wouldn't remember doing it either. Then again, the only reason he kissed her in the first place was because he knew that she would never know that he finally crossed the line between good friends and… well really good friends.

"In that case," Rose said when he pulled back. "I'm going to do something that I've always been too afraid to do when we're awake…"

"What's that?" he asked leaning instinctively toward her mouth.

Since the Doctor had fallen on his side when his consciousness slipped out of his body she reached around and goosed him hard on the bum, then sealed her lips over his to silence the indignant yelp of surprise and finished off by combing her fingers through his gorgeous hair.

"You, Rose Tyler, don't play fair!" The Doctor panted a little as he spoke.

"Neither do you." She pointed out, and then added. "We should work on that whole getting back into our bodies thing now."

"Yeah, yeah we should." The Doctor replied his face showing only a little of the disappointment and shame he felt for taking advantage of her like he had.

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Rose's eyes fluttered open and she saw the shapes of people standing over her.

When her eyes focused it was the Doctor's huge grin that greeted her.

"Hello." He said in that special way he sometimes did.

"Hello." She replied and she couldn't help the grin that spread over her face.

Before she knew it she was being held tightly to the Doctor as he buried his face in her neck.

"Hey?" she said, "Everything's alright yeah?"

"Well, sort of." The Doctor admitted letting her go.

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"So I had an out-of-body experience?" Rose asked on the way back to the TARDIS.

"Yup." The Doctor replied, but there was something in his voice that was sad.

"I don't remember any of it." She said.

"The shaman said you wouldn't."

"You had to go after me you said… do you remember anything?"

The Doctor took a little too long to respond. "No, I don't."

Rose knew that translated to "I remember everything." But didn't push him on the matter, trusting him to tell her without prodding when the time was right.

Although in doing so, never being told was a possibility too.

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A/N: I ended it there for a specific reason, while my little shipper heart keeps saying: "Keep going! You have to have some sentimental mushy stuff to end it properly!" The rest of me is going, that wasn't the purpose of this fic, and while I did add in the kisses and everything because of how freakin' OTP those two are, that isn't the appropriate time or place for it to be addressed. I dunno, adding more about him sharing feelings and stuff just didn't seem like the right way to end it.

Please review! Let me know if this is anywhere near as up to expectations! Having lots of people say they can't wait to see how this ends is a lot of pressure! This was a lot of fun to write though so I'm glad people enjoyed it as much as I did.


	13. Chapter 12: Two Drabbles

A/N: Since I haven't updated in quite some time you get TWO new things… THREE if you count each of these drabbles separately. Enjoy.

"Stone Rose"

"Were you and him…" Donna doesn't finish the question; Rose's eyes have forbidden it.

"Don't you dare ask that question." They say. "What I had with Him is for me alone."

But there is something more. Something behind her automatic sharp expression. Something that says:

"I don't know."

Her love for him is plain to see, though she tries her hardest to bury the evidence. But just there, lingering beneath the surface of her flawless mask of friendly concern is the wounded heart of a broken dreamer. And that heart shouts her pain louder than her self-defensive gazes ever could.

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"The Hardest Decision He Ever Made For Her"

With his eyes he pleads for her to understand that this isn't how it seems.

He is doing this _because_ he loves her, _because_ he wants to be with her, and the only way to do that is to divide himself. One man who must suffer on without her, and one man who will spend the rest of his life doing his best to make her happy. Because the universe needs a Time Lord who isn't willing to risk everything for the sake of one woman. The universe needs a Time Lord without a weakness.

As they kiss he hopes she will understand this someday, and forgive him.

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A/N: I watched Turn Left, The Stolen Earth, and Journey's End last night and these were written shortly after. The first one is exactly 100 words (go me, you know how hard it is to make these things exactly 100 words?), the second it a little bit over (why must Time Lord be two words?). Please review! If it worked for you, let me know, if not, still let me know.


	14. Chapter 13: I'll Be Home for Christmas

Author's Note: So I wrote this for the sistersofguh Winter Romance-a-thon and finished it around the holidays, and then forgot about it... ("Doh!") So here it is, a bit late for the holidays, and a bit dusty from sitting in my hard drive for too long but still here nonetheless. And who doesn't enjoy a little fluff?

The Vitex/Torchwood Corporate Christmas Party was in full-swing downstairs. Dignitaries and delegates from the world over were drinking expensive Champaign along side lab techs and interns who hardly ever saw the light of day; forever hidden from the sun as they were in Torchwood Tower's sub-basement labs, more often than not taking caffeine intravenous. But here on this one night of the year, Christmas Eve, they were allowed to relax from monitoring the skies and stars and knock elbows with the very highest of high society.

And of course the belle of the ball was Jacqueline Andrea Suzette Tyler herself, wearing designer dresses and pearls that were worth three times her monthly wages back home, in her original universe.

If anything, this farce had made Jackie more humble, and Rose loved her for it, but even with all of the friends she'd made over the past few years gathering close and even with her oldest friend still by her side, and even with her mother and (pseudo) father happily married, and even with little Tony Tyler cuddled up to her because he's far too excited to sleep the night before Christmas morning, Rose can't help but feel that aching void that threatens to consume her. Even four years on Rose still feels the loss of the Doctor and the TARDIS as keenly as she did the day she was shut in this universe for good. Christmas was always that much worse for the memories of one's spent with him. Cardiff 1869, when the Doctor was all big ears and leather, and then London 2005, when he'd brought her home as a Christmas present after regenerating, then fallen sick, and had proved himself the same man with one speech and a sword-fight. Christmases just weren't the same without him. Then again, nothing was really the same without him.

The night was cold and overcast, so there was a good chance of snow before morning. The biscuits had been laid out in the private family parlor, the one with the private Christmas tree, decorated with gaudy tinsel, candy canes, and ornaments hand-made by Tony and Rose. Tomorrow morning the staff would be off, so a fire would be lit by Pete, Jackie would make tea, and Tony would dive into his presents while Rose manned the camcorder. Eventually the floor would be absolutely lost in wrapping paper and the family would curl up for another hour before the hassle of preparing Christmas dinner needed to begin. However, there was always one present that remained unopened. A comparatively small package, one wrapped in newspaper and with a tag that simply read, "To: the Doctor. With Love, Rose."

After Tony was born Jackie had started hanging a stocking for the mad-man in pinstripes to "always remind them of who they had to thank for being here." Rose knew better than to be bitter, especially when it had given her back Pete and Mickey, not to mention Tony.

Rose knew she wouldn't be missed at the party, her mother was already through her fifth flute of Champaign, so Pete was busy looking after her, Mickey was busy chatting up the girl on the Torchwood medical team he fancied, and everyone else would be too busy with free booze or the complementary mistletoe to notice that the blonde in the blue dress had gone missing. So she sat with her brother on the sofa in the Pete's study/library and stared at the few stars she could see through the clouds over the back garden. She'd put the radio on and "Silent Night" switched over to Frank Sinatra's "I'll Be Home For Christmas." Rose wasn't entirely sure why, but this song always made her tear up.

"What's wrong Rosie? Why you crying?" Tony said lifting his cheek from her shoulder when he felt a tear drop onto his head.

"I'm alright Tony." Rose said, wiping furiously at her eyes. "'s just this song, it makes me sad."

"That's a shame." A male voice commented. It was a voice that shook Rose to the very core, she'd know it anywhere, it sounded like stars, and travel, and far off places she couldn't pronounce, it sounded like pinstripes, and werewolves, and a Christmas invasion… It sounded an _awful _lot like the Doctor…

"It's always been one of my favorites. It's hopeful, and hope's a good emotion, I quite like hope."

Rose forced herself to turn around with her heart beating somewhere in the back of her throat. Forced herself because when she saw who it really was it was going to kill her, forced herself because she had to tell this random party-goer to leave, since he wasn't allowed in the private wing of the mansion.

But when she finally did turn, and dear god it _looked_ like him, all wild-hair, and mile-wide goofy grin, and pinstripe-suit with dirty chucks.

"Doctor?" Rose said, her voice was small and hopeful and it caught in her throat twice before his name got out on a whisper.

The Doctor's grin widened and he pulled one hand from his pocket to wiggle his fingers at her in greeting, "That's me, hello."

"Are you- what- are you really here?"

"Well… I mean it's all relative of course but yep, I'm as really here as you are!"

Rose could hardly fight back the tears in her eyes as she rushed towards his waiting arms.

"Doctor!" she cried.

"Hello, Rose Tyler." He whispered into her hair.

Rose was jerked awake by a hand on her shoulder. She blinked her eyes blearily and looked around.

"Hmm?" she mumbled still not entirely sure what had happened, hadn't the Doctor been here just a moment ago? Where was he now?

Jackie smoothed back her hair, "It's time for bed sweetheart, the party's over and you're still in your dress."

"I fell asleep?" she queried still not completely comprehending as a sleeping Tony was lifted from her lap and into Jackie's arms.

"Yes, dear." Jackie replied carrying Tony off to his own bed.

Rose fought back tears as she felt the disappointment of it all turn sour in her belly. The Doctor was never here; his present would remain unopened for yet another year.

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The Doctor was sitting on the floor of the consol room his head in his hands; the TARDIS had landed but he was too scared to open the door.

Adelaide Brook had died because of him, because he hadn't let time and history play out the way it was supposed to. She had understood that, she saw what he was and what he was becoming and she saved him from it.

Perhaps the Valeyard was finally making himself known. Perhaps from here on out the Doctor would do less fixing, and more destroying… perhaps he was more like the Master than he'd ever let himself believe.

Inside his head the TARDIS mourned with him, and her song was that much more sorrowful than usual. He'd been like this, wrapped up in misery and self-pity with the sight of that damned Ood trapped behind his eyelids, and his hearts pounding so hard in his chest that it was beginning to hurt.

As had become a habit over the past few years whenever the Doctor was feeling fowl his thoughts turned to the subject of a blonde woman… although this time not the usual blonde woman he thought of.

What he wouldn't give for a cup of Jackie Tyler's fabulous tea. While the woman's Sheppard's pie could fell a full grown seadragonus giganticus maximus, she had made him some of the best tea he'd ever had. The Doctor sometimes wondered how Rose Tyler could have survived being raised on Jackie's cooking.

Oh, _Rose_.

The name still sent a wave of hurt through him which he quickly struggled down.

Rose Tyler was quickly forgotten however when the Doctor felt the TARDIS shift beneath him with the groaning wheeze, and jarring shudder that clearly indicated entering the Time Vortex. The Doctor was tossed about like a pinball until the TARDIS gave one last shriek in his head, landed, and promptly powered completely down.

She wasn't dead, the Doctor could still feel her clearly in his mind, but she was exhausted, wherever they'd gone had been a very hard journey, and as much as the Doctor never wanted to leave the TARDIS again for fear of declaring himself the Time Lord Victorious in another fit of madness, he couldn't deny that little feeling in the pit of his belly which said, "Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on."

He didn't bother to check the date or even where the TARDIS had taken him before stepping through the door.

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Rose had heard it; she had heard the TARDIS materializing she was absolutely positive.

The fact that Jackie and Pete met her in the hallway asking what that noise was only made her heart beat faster. She wasn't just dreaming it then.

Rushing to every window, Rose searched and searched for the source of the noise. It was too good to be true, but it had to be true!

The Doctor was here. He'd found a way. He'd finally come for her.

Finally Rose tore open the door to the back patio and there in front of her was the Doctor, looking tired, bewildered, and older than she'd ever seen him look before. He hadn't changed, he was still all pinstripes, and really great hair, but he just looked so… weary. Her heart broke for him, and all she wanted in the world was to give him the hug he looked like he desperately needed.

"Rose?" The Doctor sounded like he couldn't believe it.

"I heard it, the TARDIS. Thought I was dreaming."

"This can't be." The Doctor stuttered running a hand through his hair and looking back and forth between Rose and the TARDIS. "It's impossible!"

Rose frowned. "But you found a way through."

"I didn't do anything, I couldn't. The TARDIS… she… she figured it out… she must have or else we'd be standing in a big pile of nothing right now… well not standing, and technically we wouldn't even be there because there wouldn't be any _there_ for us to be in—"

"Doctor," Rose was smiling.

"Hmmm?"

"Can I have a hug now?"

"Oh yes, please."

Rose wasn't sure who moved first but it didn't matter because she was in the Doctor's arms and he was solid and real, and _here_.

"God I missed you!" Rose exclaimed into the fabric on his shoulder.

She could hear him smiling when he replied, "Yeah, I missed you too."

When they parted again, they remained clasping hands, completely unwilling to be parted more than that.

"So you really didn't find a way to cross the void."

The Doctor sucked in a breath. "Much to my embarrassment, no, no I did not. If there were more Time Lords around I'd be able to do it no problem but, there being only me… it shouldn't be possible."

"But she did it."

"Yeah she did… much the same way she fell through before I think, but more deliberate."

"So is she?" Rose was suddenly quite concerned that the TARDIS had sacrificed herself to get him here.

"No, she's just resting; the journey took a lot out of her."

Rose walked up to the TARDIS and stroked her hand over the faded blue wooden exterior.

"Thank you." She murmured.

The TARDIS hummed and the light on her roof flashed sluggishly.

"A few hours of rest an' she'll be good as new." The Doctor reassured her.

By this time Jackie Tyler had made it down stairs and shrieked loudly.

"S'you!" She exclaimed, her hands covering her mouth. "You came back!"

What happened next the Doctor was not expecting. Jackie rushed forward and hugged the Doctor tightly, followed by a smack to the back of the head, followed by another hug.

The Doctor yelped indignantly.

"What a wonderful Christmas surprise eh, Rose?"

"It's Christmas?" The Doctor asked.

"Just gone one, on the 25th of December." Jackie replied.

"She brought me here for Christmas…" The Doctor mused, and Rose squeezed his hand with a smile.

"God, you look terrible Doctor!" Jackie exclaimed, and shushed him before he could protest. "Just give me a mo' and I'll go put the kettle on!"

When Jackie had finally left them alone the Doctor let a sigh escape him.

"What?" Rose asked.

"I'm having a hard time believing that this is real."

"Me too." Rose confessed, and they squeezed each other's hands as if to hold onto this dream a bit more firmly.

"Rose Tyler, I would very much like to do something I've been putting off for a while now…" The Doctor said breaking the silence.

"What's that?" Rose replied staring at him and noticed his eyes drop to her lips and she licked them reflexively making the Doctor swallow hard.

"I would very much like to kiss you." He leaned in towards her but stopped a few millimeters short to ask, "Is that alright?"

"Oh god, yes!" Rose replied wrapping her arms around his neck and closing the distance between them.

"Now I've got – well it's about bleedin' time!" Jackie's voice cut across the idyllic scene of the Doctor and Rose kissing in the Christmas snow. "Now get in here you two before you catch cold!"

"Actually—" The Doctor started to speak but Jackie shushed him.

"I don't care if you can't actually get a cold from the cold, just get inside!"

With that the mad alien and the pink and yellow girl moved inside to the warm kitchen and Jackie looked out contentedly over her TARDIS-filled patio and back lawn.

"Thank you." She whispered to no one in particular.

The TARDIS hummed tiredly, but happily in reply, having once again saved her Time lord from himself by reuniting him with the girl who once was and at the same time always would be the Bad Wolf.

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A/N: First of all, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed.

I would like it known that I was almost completely evil and stopped when Rose woke up, but as it was the holidays when I wrote this, it needed a happy ending.

I cry whenever I hear "I'll Be Home for Christmas," even more so when I almost don't make it home for Christmas. (Singing this to myself at three in the morning in a hotel room outside of London may be the most pitiful state I've ever been in.) Thus why Rose now cries when she hears the song.

Anyway, thanks again for reading!


	15. Chapter 14: Valentine's Day Special

It was a universal truth that the Doctor hated Valentine's day.

"But Rose," He whined, "Valentine's day is so… Valentine-y!"

Rose raised a speculative eyebrow clearly unimpressed.

"That a technical term, Doctor?" She quipped.

The argument had kicked off when Rose had requested visiting her mum, and as if that wasn't bad enough, she requested that they visit her for Valentine's day. This then degenerated into the Doctor waxing poetic about how Valentine's day was simply a ploy by the card and chocolate industry to make more money, and that it really should be considered degrading to the people you love only giving them one day to feel special!

But Rose simply wasn't having it. She wanted to see her mum, and she wanted to see her on the 14th of February.

Grumbling something about "domestication" the whole way, the Doctor shuffled over to the consol and sent the TARDIS into the vortex aimed for the Powel Estate… St. Valentine's Day 2006.

Approximately seven hours, thirty… seven minutes, one Valentine's Day party hosted by Jaqueline Andrea Suzette (or was is Suzette Andrea…) Tyler, and twelve strawberry daiquiris later, (approximately because the daiquiris had made the Doctor's timey-wimey senses go poof, and strawberry because it was Valentine's day and apparently bananas don't count as Valentine's day food) Rose half-helped, half-dragged the Doctor back to the TARDIS. However, despite the alcohol, his mood concerning the holiday hadn't improved.

"You know what Rose?" The Doctor slurred. "Valentiny's day is just…. Yucky… I mean what's the point of a holiday to—"

"Doctor?" Rose interrupted.

"Hmmm?" He slurred in reply.

"Shut up."

And then she was kissing him. She was really kissing him; with lips, and teeth, and tongue, and fire, and passion, and bloody hell! Rose Tyler was kissing HIM! The Doctor was being KISSED by Rose Tyler!

YIPPIE!

"How you feelin' 'bout Valentine's Day now?"

Rose Tyler's voice was far too smug for the Doctor's liking; he should really say something dreadfully clever to put her in her place.

"…."

Damn.

Apparently Rose Tyler-s have the power to disconnect impressive Time Lord brains from their admittedly over active gobs.

Rose grinned that cheeky grin of hers with her tongue poking out between her teeth and the Doctor felt his knees go weak.

"Just as I thought." And she gave him another peck on the lips before pushing her way into the TARDIS.

And the Doctor thought, maybe Valentine's day wasn't so bad after all.

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A/N: Teehee, just some fluff for Valentine's day. Now please make my Valentine's Day and write a quick response?


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